Guante & Big Cats

"Guante" is Spanish for glove, and a surname maybe best known as the one attached to '80s relief pitcher Cecilio Guante (career ERA of 3.48). But it's also an alias for MC/slam poet Kyle Myhre, whose metaphorical handgear is less for snaring line drives than for handling less easily-fieldable concepts -- things like love, death, social activism and post-apocalyptic nightmares. Fortunately, Guante has a deft sense of humor in his arsenal, along with a battle-hewn tongue that rattles off sharply-spit rhymes and high-concept narratives. His new album An Unwelcome Guest tells the story of a traveler's fight against a zombie horde (stop me if you've heard that one before), but Guante's lyrics go deeper than the familiar comic-book premise into an authority-questioning meditation on violence that'd do John Romero's most allegorical moments proud. And Big Cats, his production partner on the album, has the kind of chops that can only add to the atmospheric resonance. You could say his beats fit Guante like... uh... yeah. Maybe we should leave the metaphors to the professionals. With Our Own End, the Gavels, the Central Division. 18+
Sat., Jan. 30, 6 p.m., 2010